


Tell me, Lady

by mific



Category: Steerswoman Series - Rosemary Kirstein
Genre: Evolution, Fanfiction, Gen, Philosophy, Poetry, Survival of the Fittest, life and death, thermodynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4372127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rowan the steerswoman considers some Big Issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell me, Lady

“Tell me, Lady, why do people die?”  
The steerswoman sat so as to be at the child’s level.  
She knew nothing of the child - it didn't matter.  
All questions must be answered to the best of her knowledge.  
The crowd drew close around, waiting and listening.  
The question hung between them.

“I could say they die from illness, but that would not be everything.  
I could say they die from accidents, or at the hands of others,  
but that would not be everything.”  
The child nodded, face upturned.  
“I could say they die as their hearts stop beating, or from old age.”  
“But that would not be everything?” asked the child.  
“It would not,” the steerswoman agreed. “It would be how, not why.  
There is a reason under these answers. The real reason.”

The crowd had grown still.  
Behind the child, a woman knotted her fists in her apron.  
“People die because life needs change,” said the steerswoman.  
“They die so others can follow. They die to make way.”  
“Otherwise there would be too many?” the child asked.  
The steerswoman nodded. “Yes, and for the sake of change.  
If people never died there would be no change.  
Always the same people, going on forever.”  
“That’d be boring,” the child said.  
“It would be,” the steerswoman agreed, “very boring.”

“People are like batches of pots thrown on the wheel.  
Some are strong, some delicate. Some are lopsided.  
Each pot a little different from the rest – like people.”  
“Taller or shorter?” suggested the child.  
The steerswoman nodded.  
“Or more curious, better at fishing, or kickball.”  
The child bit her lip. “But why does that matter?”  
“There are many, many people,” the steerswoman said.  
The child nodded. This was a market town, always bustling.  
“Many people, all fitting differently into the world.”

“Because they’re all different?” the child asked, intent.  
The steerswoman nodded. “Some people fit well,  
So they live a little longer. They don’t get sick. They don’t get killed.”  
“Why does that matter?” asked the child, frowning.  
The steerswoman smiled. “Because they have children.”  
The child grinned up at her. “And the children are all different?”  
“Everyone’s different,” agreed the steerswoman,  
“but even so, children take after their parents.”

The child nodded. “I have my father’s eyes, mother says.”  
The woman with her hands twisted in a knot made a small noise.  
The steerswoman went on.  
“So if someone has fitted well into the world, and had children,”  
—“Children like them,” the child put in—  
“Children like them,” the steerswoman agreed.  
“Those children may also fit well into the world, and live longer.”  
“And have children,” said the child, pleased.  
“Yes, some day,” said the steerswoman, for the child was still young.

“But, Lady,” said the child, “I still don’t see why people die.”  
She frowned. “If they’ve had children, is that it? They just die?”  
The woman standing behind the child flinched.  
Her hands moved as though to reach out, but she did not.  
The steerswoman shook her head.  
“No, the fact that life needs change cannot explain one person’s death.  
Many things cause that, like illness, or old age.”  
“It was a tree,” the child said. “For my father. A tree fell on him.”

The steerswoman nodded, and took the child’s hand.  
“I cannot say why your father died, except that we all die.  
People die because we are built to die. Even if we escape sickness  
or accident, or bandits. Our bodies age, and in the end, we die.”  
“So that things change?” asked the child.  
“Just so,” said the steerswoman. “So life can keep growing,  
and changing, and fitting better into the world.”

The woman had freed her hands from her apron.  
She rested them on the child’s shoulders.  
“It seems a cruel thing,” she said quietly, “that life needs death to fuel it.”  
The steerswoman nodded. “The things that shape us can seem cruel.”  
She paused. “Or inhuman. Which they are, but also beautiful.”  
The child took her mother’s hand and stood.  
“Thank you, Lady,” she said, and they left.  
The crowd wandered off, drawn to their hearths, to their suppers.

The steerswoman sat by the fire, lost in thought.  
People rarely asked the big questions,  
probably as they did not truly want answers.  
She imagined the world changing, all the people, animals, plants.  
Here and gone, flickering like flames, in and out of being.  
Forever changed by the world, and changing it.  
And not only living things, for rivers changed the land.  
Mountains wore down, and even Guidestars fell.  
The true stars burned and flickered like the flames of this fire.  
All things, everywhere. A long, slow dance of change.

The steerswoman paused.  
She had been taught to weigh options, not to foreclose or exclude.  
Either all things would change everywhere and forever,  
or the vast dance of change would someday, slowly, end.  
If all things changed infinitely, they must be fueled to do so.  
She poked at the fire. Sparks flew as a log collapsed.  
Fuel was not infinite.  
Trees burned to ashes, mountains ground slowly down to dust.  
When all was as simple as it could be, ash and dust and less than dust,  
all change would stop.  
Death. Not the absence of life. The absence of change.

The steerswoman shivered, then shook herself, sighing.  
Enough - she had strayed too far.  
She rose, wincing and stretching stiff limbs.  
She was alive, and like all living things, needed fuel.  
The steerswoman made her way to the kitchens,  
seeking supper.  
 


End file.
